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Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

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Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually read the IPCC report, or only read what the media says about it? There’s a huge difference. The IPCC, the consensus of scientists says that the rate of growth in the world will slow. That’s it. And that’s turned into an “earth will become a fireball” narrative by the media. Therefore the actual scientific consensus is the world will get better more slowly, not that it will get worse. Stop listening…

Nonsense. The scientific consensus does not simply say that one thing or another will happen. There is a number of possible scenarios each of which is assigned some likelihood according to modelling(informed by empirical data). No serious scientist is saying "X will happen and that's it". That's an inherently unscientific statement.

There’s no plausible scenario where climate change drives global GDP growth negative over the next 50 year. None.

Yea uncontrolled climate change will make life worse than had it not happened. But no it will not outweigh the cumulative beneficial effects of baseline economic growth.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#612

Unpopular opinion: Social media is a great scapegoat, but it is not the source of the problem. It is where they go to communicate and cope. My sole qualification to post this: I have four kids that are either teens or in their early 20s, and one who will be a teen next year. Here is what I see out there: 1. Kids have little or no slack in their schedule. This means very little freedom, and very little time to work th…

And don't forget the climate emergency.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#613
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Multiple major recessions One. They lived through one major recession, and here it wasn't really major, and is not something they lived through recently. They were younger than 6 when it started. I've lived through two. The 80s weren't a happy time, and there are no signs that that had such an impact on teen mental health. If it did, it would be proof that the impact of a major recession is temporary. > prospect of…

> The 80s weren't a happy time, and there are no signs that that had such an impact on teen mental health Are we sure about that? The fun thing with a lot of childhood trauma can take years to surface, let alone figure out. I personally wonder whether it has contributed to our race towards a kleptocratic society. I can say that personally, while I was born in the early 80s, the recession had an impact on my family. E…

> The fun thing with a lot of childhood trauma can take years to surface

In that case, the recession can't be the cause for the spike in mental health issues.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#614
post #540

Unpopular opinion: Social media is a great scapegoat, but it is not the source of the problem. It is where they go to communicate and cope. My sole qualification to post this: I have four kids that are either teens or in their early 20s, and one who will be a teen next year. Here is what I see out there: 1. Kids have little or no slack in their schedule. This means very little freedom, and very little time to work th…

How do you reconcile (1,2) with the observation that similar health problems are occurring in other countries? Isn't (3) now heavily mediated by social media?

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Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#615
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have different parenting styles, and that's OK. I hope your children turn out wonderfully. I want for my child to have a bigger playground, so to speak. Reading books, playing with kids outside, bothering our neighbors constantly to pet and play with their dogs, making dandelion necklaces, etc. When she's on her phone she just zombies out, and it's like watching a device suck the soul from such a warm and extrover…

You cant play with other kids outside when you are isolated from other kids or when they organize outside play on platform you are not allowed to use. And when all other kids have X and you dont have X, the experience of playing together is experience of not really belonging among them.

>And when all other kids have X and you dont have X, the experience of playing together is experience of not really belonging among them.

On the other hand, it's probably a good skill to form to learn how to adapt when others have something you do not. Other people having access to more resources is something that you deal with your entire life.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#616
post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I am European, I've lived and worked in 3 different EU countries. But Americans really don't appreciate how lucky they are. An American CS college grad can earn more than almost all senior/staff engineers anywhere in the EU e.g. ~$150k.

That's an extremely small group of lucky Americans, who happen to hang out on HN.

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Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teens are aware that they are going to inherit a pretty terrible world With respect, I truly mean no insult when I say this is a naive and ignorant position. By every measure, the world is generally better than it has ever been. Far better than any decade in the past you could care to name. Despite media doom-and-glooming, there is every reason to expect that teens will inherit an overall materially better world th…

Can't buy a house, can't expect work with reasonable pay in most places, will probably be impacted severely by climate change, food prices are quickly becoming extremely high. The future is shit.

The percent of household budgets spent on food has been steadily falling for 50 years. It’s very recently ticked up slightly, but this is a tiny blip on an otherwise very long running trend.

Median real wages are the highest they’ve ever been in history.

Climate change may lower the rate of economic growth but there’s no scenario where GDP growth goes negative because of climate change. Even given the worse effects of climate change, the people of the future will be significantly materially wealthier than people today.

Housing is a major issue, fueled by terrible NIMBY policies that have artificially restricted supply. But there are still many metros, with relatively cheap housing.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#618

My entirely anecdotal impression as a high school teacher is that media (in general, often but not always “social” media) is doing an exceptional job of sucking up teenagers’ every waking moment that is not actively demanded to be focused on something else. It’s pleasure without joy. Ennui without boredom. Their social skills (and social interest) appear markedly reduced even compared to even five years ago. So many…

And as a parent I just feel powerless to stop it. A battle just to get modest parental controls on my teen's phone. Serious mental health issues that blow up into full blown crisis explosion when we try to put our foot down about doing homework or some other task. And they're nearing the age at which it starts to be downright creepy to have controls on their personal devices, but they need it more than ever. And in s…

My son is still young, so enforcing boundaries is much easier (easier as in successful, the emotional disregulation is still there of course).

It’s not easy. Do your best. Try to actively support broadening their experiences with (hopefully) the outcome that they expand their interests. I think the needed thing here is not necessarily teetotaling, but finding something better to do than consuming media all the time.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#619
I'll take the onus and point out there that there's a non-insignificant number of people on this board actively participating and making this even worse, and in some cases gloating about it. When these threads come up, they are either quiet about it, or they would find a way to shift the blame as a means of self-defense (either conscious or not).

Keep this in mind next time you read a thread about salaries and how so-and-so company is paying $600k+ TC for new grads and you're "leaving money on the table."

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#620

Unpopular opinion: Social media is a great scapegoat, but it is not the source of the problem. It is where they go to communicate and cope. My sole qualification to post this: I have four kids that are either teens or in their early 20s, and one who will be a teen next year. Here is what I see out there: 1. Kids have little or no slack in their schedule. This means very little freedom, and very little time to work th…

> The stakes are too high. View the wrong website on your chromebook and get referred to law enforcement Whoever implemented the surveillance of children should burn in hell. Since that probably doesn't exist the next prison with strong similarities should be chosen. You teach them that this kind of 24/7 surveillance is normal and I think they have enough problems with peer pressure through social media. You also tea…

I think maybe you've misunderstood the comment/situation a bit.

There's definitely things on the internet parents don't want them to access - this is normal, we don't want them going on there.

This 'surveillance' can be problematic but it's not 'dystopian'.

The 'dystopian surveillance' is for the more serious issues, people getting flagged for this or that etc..

'Age appropriate content' is fine, but nuanced.

'Surveilling everyone' is bad.

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